I have been sitting with the Seventh Meeting in The Pilgrim Continues His Way. The conversation has stirred questions in me—not because I want to dismiss the people in the book, but because I want to discern what weight to give their teaching.
The Professor speaks about the solitary life in broad strokes, describing hermits as people who may become melancholy or fall into delusion. The Hermit challenges those assumptions, but then makes broad claims of his own. He connects spiritual delusion with pride, lack of guidance, and mistaking one’s thoughts for God’s voice. I find myself asking whether both speakers, in different ways, are generalizing about people they do not fully understand.
The Hermit also says that a knowledgeable spiritual guide is necessary for the interior activity of the heart. He urges the seeker to look diligently for one and, if none can be found, to ask God for help, learn from the Holy Fathers, test what is learned against Scripture, and remain open to instruction from ordinary people.
That advice has wisdom in it. We can learn from others, and wise counsel can help us examine our lives. But I do not recall Scripture saying that everyone who prays inwardly must have a spiritual guide. In Matthew 6, Jesus tells us to go into our room, close the door, and pray to the Father. Other passages encourage wisdom, mutual care, and testing what we hear. I do not find there a universal rule that a person must have a particular kind of guide before praying deeply.
This is where the four sources of truth matter to me: Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. They are not equal in weight. Scripture is primary for me. Tradition, reason, and experience can help clarify Scripture, but they remain accountable to it.
Jesus’ confrontations with religious leaders remind me to be careful. In Mark 7, he criticizes leaders who allow human tradition to set aside God’s command. That does not make all tradition wrong. Traditions can carry wisdom and help us understand how people have followed God. But when a human practice is presented as a universal command from God, I believe we should ask whether Scripture actually says that.
I also find myself questioning the Hermit’s defense of a life spent as a hermit or recluse, or under vows of silence. I am not questioning solitude. We need prayer, quiet, and time with God. My question is whether a permanent withdrawal from ordinary relationships fits the life Jesus calls us to live. Jesus sometimes withdrew to pray, but he also returned to people. He shared meals with those others called sinners and taught his followers to be salt and light.
The Beatitudes describe the life that is to become visible: mercy, humility, peacemaking, and a hunger for justice. Galatians 5 describes the Spirit’s fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These are lived among people. John 17 records Jesus praying not that his followers be taken out of the world, but that they be protected and sent into it.
The Hermit’s distinction between a “knowledgeable guide” and “simple people” gives me pause, too. I think of my mother. By some measures, she might have been called a simple person. Yet she had wisdom and a relationship with God as strong as the Pope’s. Galatians 3:28 tells me that we are all one in Christ. People may have different experience and learning, but a title does not measure anyone’s closeness to God.
I believe the people in this book are sincere, and I do not want to discredit their experience. I am still listening and learning. But I am also testing what I read against Scripture, reason, and what I have witnessed in life.
Perhaps the question I am carrying is this: When a spiritual teaching sounds true, how do we discern what weight to give it—and how do we keep tradition from becoming a command Scripture never gave?
Sources: The Pilgrim Continues His Way, Seventh Meeting, pp. 170–176; Matthew 5:3–16; Matthew 6:6; Mark 7:8–13; John 17:15–18; Galatians 3:28; Galatians 5:22–23
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